A Visitor's Guide to Victorian England

Wednesday, 27 April 2016

Today, I'm delighted to be hosting a guest post by the fabulous Angela Buckley,who
specialises in writing about Victorian crime. Angela tells us the sad story of the infant victims of Amelia Dyer, the notorious baby farmer; many of their mothers were domestic servants who had no choice but to entrust their children to the care of women like Dyer.

Victorian Childcare: Baby Farming

Life was particularly harsh for single mothers in the nineteenth century. Young women who fell pregnant outside wedlock lost their homes and jobs, and were shunned by society. Domestic servants were amongst the most vulnerable and their plight was brought to light by a series of dreadful discoveries in the river Thames at Caversham, in the spring of 1896.

On 30 March, a bargeman was towing a boat of ballast upriver and, as he approached Caversham Weir near Reading, he spotted a brown paper parcel in the water. He and his mate hooked the package to take a closer look. Once on the towpath, they cut through layers of newspaper and flannel to expose a tiny human foot and part of a leg. When the police opened the parcel fully at the mortuary, they found the body of a baby girl, aged between six months and a year. She had been strangled by a piece of white tape tied around her neck and knotted under her ear. A faint name and address on the sodden parcel led the officers to Amelia Dyer, a local baby farmer. A letter found at her home suggested that the child recovered from the river might have been Helena Fry, daughter of Mary Fry, a domestic servant.

Amelia Dyer (With thanks to Thames Valley Police Museum)

Victorian servants who had illegitimate children were usually dismissed from their post, despite the fact that they may have been sexually exploited by a member of their employer’s family. Encumbered with an infant, they may not have been able to return home and they would not have found another position. Their choices were limited - there was no state assistance and they often ended up in the workhouse, where they were separated from their child. The only other viable option, if they could afford it, was to place the child with a baby farmer.

Baby farmers, who were usually women, advertised in the local newspapers for children to adopt for a fee, either a weekly payment of about five shillings, or a one-off premium of around £10, which was a large proportion of a domestic servant’s annual wage. Transactions were organised by letter, and once the mother was satisfied that her baby would be taken care of, she handed over the child to the baby farmer, with the money, and often never saw them again.

The reality for farmed-out children was bleak. Although there were some reputable baby farmers, many of them were unscrupulous practitioners who neglected the infants in their charge, drugging them with opiates, such as Godfrey’s Cordial, and starving them to death. The high infant mortality rate at the time masked the deaths of these poor mites. The practice was unregulated and completely legal.When the body of baby Helena Fry was found in the Thames in 1896, the police investigated Amelia Dyer, who had been running her baby farming business for some 30 years. Many of the parents who had entrusted their children to her were in domestic service. The bodies of at least six children were discovered in the Thames at Caversham Weir, one of whom was Frances Jesse Goulding, illegitimate daughter of Elizabeth Goulding, who worked as a servant in a public house in Gloucester. The baby’s father was a married man and so Elizabeth made the heartbreaking decision to give her child up for adoption. When she saw an advertisement in the paper, she arranged with Amelia Dyer’s daughter, Mary Ann Palmer, to have baby Frances adopted. She met Palmer on Gloucester station and paid her £10 to take the child, who was later identified by a lock of her hair, after her body was found in the river.

On 22 May 1896, Amelia Dyer was convicted of the wilful murder of baby Doris Marmon, whose body was found in the Thames in a carpet bag together with another child, Harry Simmons. Three weeks later Dyer went to the gallows. Following her execution, legislation was introduced to protect children like Frances Jesse Goulding and the other infants who perished at the hands of the notorious Victorian baby farmer.

A big thank you to Angela for writing such a fascinating, yet poignant post. Please
get in touch if baby farming has cropped up in your family tree or if you have a story to tell about your Victorian servant ancestors.Angela writes about Victorian crime and you can find out more about her work on her website www.angelabuckleywriter.com or on her Facebook page, Victorian Supersleuth

Amelia Dyer and the Baby Farm Murders by Angela Buckley is available in ebook and paperback via Amazon and other online retail outlets. Angela is also the author of The Real Sherlock Holmes (Pen and Sword).

Tuesday, 22 December 2015

Today is day 11 of 12 Days of Victorian Christmas cards and I thought I'd share a very traditional-looking design of the Nativity with you. This is a three-dimensional card from the 1890s and this is the front when the card is flat:

Copyright Michelle Higgs

This is what the card looks like when it's fully open:

Copyright Michelle Higgs

The card was published by Raphael Tuck & Sons. As well as being a three-dimensional card, it's also a novelty card. If you shine a light through the blue cellophane-like material which represents the window, it illuminates the baby Jesus.

Monday, 21 December 2015

Now we've reached day 10 of 12 Days of Victorian Christmas cards, it's about time that I share a mechanical card with you. Victorian Christmas card designers were ingenious in their designs and inventions and all manner of pop-up style cards appeared. This is one of my favourites: an embossed black cat. This is what the card looks like from the front when fully closed.

Saturday, 19 December 2015

For day 8 of 12 Days of Victorian Christmas Cards, here's a very unusual card. Look away if you're scared of spiders! In a circular shape, the design is of a large spider on its web with a fly approaching:

Copyright Michelle Higgs

The verse isn't clear at all on the scan but it says:

Will you walk into my parlourSaid the spider to the fly.I've a very nice plum puddingAnd a beautiful Mince pie.

Friday, 18 December 2015

In today's card for 12 Days of Victorian Christmas cards, I'd like to share another card with an animal design. This one is dated 1884 and it was published by Louis Prang & Co., Boston. A group of owls and rabbits are playing blind man's buff by moonlight.

Copyright Michelle Higgs

In case you can't read the verse, it says:

By loving friends you are surrounded,Oh, be not blind to this, I pray.They wish that joy and mirth unboundedMay crown your happy Christmas day.